Boss Made Them Work In The Middle Of Nowhere, So Workers Got Revenge By Playing By The Rules

Sometimes, the folks in charge make the WORST decisions for their employees.

Heck, you’ve probably been there before, right?

We all have!

Well, the moral of this story from Reddit is to never give up and stick to The Man when you feel like things are unfair in the workplace.

Check out what they had to say.

“I worked for a large international accounting firm with offices all over the country.

The boss was a little shady.

Our boss (Karen) was well liked until she became the boss. A smiling assassin type who only cared about her position and looking good in front of the higher ups. All about ‘the numbers’ even if what we had to do to get to those numbers didn’t make sense.

So here’s the story.

They had to venture out to the middle of nowhere once a week.

My team (about 12) were primarily based in the London office but once a week (per my contract and everyone else’s ) were required to work in a remote office ages from London.

This place was miserable. A building in the middle of nowhere. One tiny corner shop for snacks. Next to a motorway. The closest place to eat was a 15 mins drive away.

We all couldn’t stand it. But hey ho, it was only once a week.

Anyway, when our boss got promoted her soul life mission was to cut costs. Everything from stopping overtime to telling us we had no stationary budget for pens and had to take from other teams stores, to allowing only one meal on social drinks – and making comments at the meal when someone choose theirs to be the more expensive option (e.g ‘are you really choosing that, it’s expensive, I’m not sure we are going to have enough budget).

This is considering all other teams went for large fancy dinners all the time, unlimited drinks etc.

A decision was made.

At one point she decided that the miserable location should be our primary office and she wanted us all to go there 4 days a week instead of 1. All but one of our team were living in London. This meant for me, a 2.5 hr journey one way instead of 1 hour.

After a few months this really took its toll. The assistant manager (a friend of mine) told me she said in passing to him that this office was less of a cost on our team budget than the London office…what a shock.

But wait, there was a policy!

I decided to speak to HR and see what my options are- maybe get an exception? Well… turns out we had a policy that anything over your normal travel hours to the closest office location to your home could be used as your working hours.

Aka, the extra 1.5 hours each way would be considered working hours. So I could arrive at 10.30 instead of 9am and leave at 4 instead of 5.30 Also, if trains and things were delayed or cancelled, that would also be included in working hours. This happened often as this place was the middle of nowhere, infrequent trains. So I was often arrive at 11.30.

Sure, I can comply with that!

I forwarded the emails with HR to her and explained how I would be complying with this policy. She agreed. BUT tried in a meeting to tell me this was an exception for me… and to not tell anyone else. Well… I told everyone else.

And we all begun complying with the policy. This meant we spent less time in the office and productivity dwindled. She mentioned this a lot in meetings. I would often (respectfully) point out that it didn’t make sense to force us to travel to this office and it’s effects. I was the main one speaking up about this.

The boss caved for them.

At some point (maybe a few months later). She told me I could go to 5 days in the London office but again, this was a ‘special arrangement’ for me and that she ‘appreciated me’ and was making ‘accommodations only for me’.

She also said she would tell everyone I had ‘special circumstances that allowed me this arrangement’ and to keep our conversation confidential. I honestly think she just got fed up with me pointing out how our productivity is lower only because she made us travel there 4 days a week.

But other workers were pretty annoyed by this.

Of course I complied but the team noticed I wasn’t with them and let’s just say…. it caused a bit of a riot. I didn’t say anything but they figured it out themselves (no special circumstances here).

Slowly but surely 1 after the other, my colleagues started joining me in London – getting their own ‘special arrangements’ with her. At some point the majority were in London. Eventually it was just her and the only other local colleague at this office while we were in London. We all had a good chuckle about when she would cave. It took a good few weeks.

Back to London we go!

Then we got the email that our permanent location going forward would be London (5 days a week) and the one local employee to that terrible office would work from home and come in once a month.

It may have happened anyway but I’d like to think that me speaking to HR and finding that policy at least had a hand in getting us moved back to London.

As for Karen, I could go on about so many stories with her but I did eventually leave (for other reasons directly related to her). Unfortunately she is still in the same position at that company.

I do however enjoy seeing her checking my LinkedIn profile from time to time – and hopefully noticing that since I left I have gone from a junior to the same position as her.”

Check out what folks had to say.

This person said this isn’t how it works!

Another individual asked a good question.

This reader said smart folks always ask TWO questions.

And this person thinks they might have missed an opportunity…

That was NOT a good idea.

Glad it worked out for the employees!

Now that you’ve read that story, check out this one about a delivery driver who took a $400 grocery order back because she wasn’t given a tip.